


storm nights

by nilchance



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FarmHorror, M/M, Oral Sex, Recovery, Sans (Farmtale) - Freeform, Sans (Horrortale) - Freeform, rottencrop - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27374455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: Axe doesn’t like storms.
Relationships: Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 250





	storm nights

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for skerb's birthday (because I adore them) and heavily inspired by their amazing farmhorror fic [Firsts & Seconds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26625826/chapters/64924531) which made me fall in love with the ship. Seriously, go read it, it's absolutely stunning. Happy birthday, skerb!

Axe doesn’t like storms.

Axe doesn’t like a lot of things. Strangers, especially human ones. Being hungry. Not knowing where Sticks is. But loud and sudden noises put him on edge something fierce, and once Axe is feeling jumpy, it takes him a long time to relax again. The first time they have a real bad storm with more than a couple passing rolls of thunder, Axe drags Sticks under the bed with him, lays on top of him, and refuses to let him venture out until morning breaks. Sticks could’ve just moved him, of course, but he didn’t really have the heart when Axe is wild-eyed and his mind is clearly somewhere much worse than this quiet little farm where they live.

They work on it, one storm at a time. Late summer and autumn sure gives plenty of opportunity to practice. Night storms are worse, for whatever reason. Axe eventually stopped dragging him under the bed to hide, but when Sticks tried to get anything done those nights, Axe trailed behind him like an unhappy shadow, all hunched and miserable, until Sticks finally resigned himself to storm nights being quiet nights.

By the time November rolls around, they’ve found a rhythm. When it storms at night, Sticks settles in somewhere with plenty of supplies, food and hot drinks and blankets and seed catalogs to read, and he and Axe wait it out together however long it takes. They stick to the bedroom, those first few storms, because the bedroom is safe in the heart of the house. Then, when Axe said he was ready, they moved to the kitchen pantry, Axe’s favorite room in the house, where he ate preserves by the jar with a spoon and occasionally growled warnings back at the thunder. 

And tonight, the living room, with its single small window looking out into the fields of corn. Even though Sticks did his best to ply Axe with a big chicken dinner and a whole apple pie for dessert, plus hot apple cider with fresh whipped cream and caramel, Axe keeps an eye on that window like the building storm is going to toss a brick through it and break in to cause trouble.

Well, you can’t plant and harvest in one day, and Sticks can’t expect Axe to not be afraid of storms after one season. It’s all right. They’ve got time, and Sticks has nothing but patience.

“You doing okay?” Sticks asks, lowering the seed catalog that he’s reread a hundred times in the last twenty minutes without actually understanding a word.

Axe looks at the window for several more seconds, narrow-eyed, trying to stare down a storm. Then he unexpectedly rises from his comfy chair, clutching his empty cider mug in one hand and the blanket wrapped ‘round his shoulders in the other, pads across the room, and plunks himself right down on the floor at Sticks’s feet.

Makes sense. Sometimes Axe feels safer on the floor, where it's easier to hide from anybody who might be crossing through the fields. The first time a seed vendor ventured by, Sticks doesn't know who was more terrified, Axe or the poor vendor who narrowly avoided getting Axe's namesake weapon buried in their belly. Took a whole lot of sweet-talking, several stories about Axe being a veteran of some completely imaginary war Sticks made up on the spot, and a lot of Sticks's secret stash of cellar moonshine to smooth that little incident over.

Worth it, though. More than worth it. Sticks would give all his bottles and the whole still too just for moments like this one, when Axe curls up close because he trusts Sticks to have his back.

Sticks shifts in his seat, spreading his legs until his hips ache a little to give more Axe room to fit those narrow shoulders between Stick's thighs. Not quite so narrow these days, thankfully. Axe is filling out after months of good food and whatever work Sticks lets him do around the farm while he's healing. He'll never be as broad as Sticks, but he's doing a damn sight better than he was. 

Used to be that they shared a bed because Axe didn’t have enough magic to keep warm, even with the space heater moved into the guest room and most of the blankets in the house piled on top of him. Axe might be able to sleep alone now, they both know it, but neither of them say it. 

(To be fair, Axe doesn’t say much in general, but he’s clever and he has no end of ways to talk without ever opening his mouth.)

Instead they find each other at the end of a long day, slipping between the flannel sheets and beneath the pile of heavy quilts the old lady makes for Sticks every Gyftmas. Axe tangles their bodies together, his hands hungry and urgent until Sticks gentles him down with softer touches. Axe trembles so sweetly when Sticks runs his hands over him and croons his admiration over the slight new curve of hip and belly that he can feel through Axe’s pajamas. Then Sticks slides a hand right down the front of those pajama bottoms and calls him sweet pea, pumpkin, darling, as he strokes Axe’s bare pelvis all slow and easy until Axe comes in the palm of his hand, sobbing and loud for once with the force of it.

Last night, Sticks’s fingers came away from Axe’s pelvis all pink and slick for the very first time, like a long-awaited harvest he thought had been killed by the frost. He’d wanted to suck that sweetness up like a Gyftmas candy, but he’d let Axe have it instead because Axe is always, always hungry. Axe gratefully licked his own taste off Sticks’s fingers and then, like the proof of his recovery gave him a fierce hankering for dick, burrowed under the covers and sucked Sticks off until he was coming dry.

A good night. A very good night.

Axe rubs his cheek against Sticks’s inner femur, silently demanding attention like a spoiled barn cat who forgot they’re supposed to be feral. Sticks pets the side of Axe’s skull that's not broken, careful to avoid the cracks that ache something awful when it rains. Axe sighs so quietly Sticks can barely hear it over the wind through the corn and the rain drumming on the roof.

“You need anything?” Sticks asks, letting his fingertips trail down Axe’s skull towards his spine. He keeps the touch light and slow, because sometimes Axe isn’t real big on hands near his throat. He’s got to be in a particular mood. “That cider of yours gone cold? You wanna ‘nother cup?”

Axe shakes his head no, curling his fingers around Sticks’s ankle in a proprietary grip. He probably does want another cup, for all that he gulped two full mugs of cold cider before he could stand to wait long enough for Sticks to warm it up in a pot on the stove with sticky caramel and a little spice, but not enough to want to move.

“All right,” Sticks murmurs. He dares to touch the place where Axe’s spine meets his skull, and Axe angles his head to the side to allow for more. So Sticks gives it to him, just running his fingertips over Axe’s scarred throat, barely making contact. Axe shivers against him and turns his head to press a sweet kiss to Sticks’s thigh through his jeans. “There you go. Ain’t you just the finest thing I’ve ever seen.”

His answer is a very quiet purr, rusty as a tractor on its last legs. Sticks has heard Axe sob in his nightmares and call for his brother, heard him actually laugh (though it’s rare as a blue moon) and heard him moan as he comes apart in Sticks’s hands, but he’s never heard a purr. His soul does something sweetly painful in his chest. He smiles down at the top of Axe’s head, feeling tender.

“Yeah,” Sticks tells him, his voice as rough and honest as everything else about him these days. “I like this too.”

Axe is nuzzled up so close to Sticks’s leg that he feels the moment Axe’s teeth part, making his soft purr louder. He can feel the humid warmth of Axe’s breath through the jeans, the delicate touch of Axe’s tongue against denim.

Oh. So it’s like that, is it.

“You want something, sweet pea?” Sticks asks.

“Yeah,” Axe says.

Sticks hums. “Good. Makes it easier to spoil you rotten.”

Axe huffs out his usual dusty approximation of a laugh, but Sticks can see the ever-so-slight sheen of pink to his bared vertebrae, like the delicate inside of a shell. Look at Axe, finding all these new ways to be pretty.

“What d’you want?” Sticks asks, chasing that blush with his fingertips. “You wanna get on my lap so I c’n pet you? Or are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry,” Axe deadpans.

“That’s good too,” Sticks says. “You know there’s plenty of me for you to swallow.”

That actually manages to startle out of those oh-so-rare laughs out of Axe, and Sticks grins down at him. “Oh, you like that, huh?”

“I like you,” Axe says, which gives Sticks all kinds of feelings soft and fuzzy as a baby chick even as Axe adds with a crooked grin, “You’re mean.”

“Yeah,” Sticks sighs happily. One hand still resting lightly on Axe, he rubs his own pelvis through his jeans with the other. “How do you want it? You wanna take it real easy tonight? Lemme do all the work?”

“Not all,” Axe says, a teasing glint in his eyelights. 

“Oh, I see,” Sticks says. He unbuttons his jeans, watching Axe watch him, and stops with his fingers on the zipper.

Axe makes a very quiet growling noise that’s almost indistinguishable from his purr. Sticks exhales a trifle shakily. He lets his magic form, watches Axe’s eyelights flare as he smells it, already a little wet and getting wetter the more Axe looks at him like that.

“How ‘bout this?” Sticks asks. “Does this do you fine?”

Axe gives him a look so feral, so tender, so satisfied that it could melt Sticks right through the floor. 

Wriggling out of his jeans is a less than graceful affair, but Axe doesn’t seem to mind. He sits on his haunches, breathing shallowly through parted teeth like he’s trying to taste Sticks on the air. Maybe he can; Axe’s sense of smell is so sharp he’s twigged onto crops going off before Sticks can take them to market, and their one trip to the store in town ended with Axe getting overwhelmed by the strong stink of the detergents and needing to go home. Sticks wouldn’t be surprised if Axe could taste him before he ever got his mouth on him.

Finally pantless (and breathless), Sticks sinks back into his chair. He sighs, “There. Now put your blanket back ‘round your shoulders, you’re gonna catch--”

And then Axe is crowding between his femurs, his mouth on Sticks’s. His kisses are still fierce, his magic licking hungrily at Sticks to steal a little warmth from him, but it ain’t stealing if Sticks gives it for free. Axe is the one to tear himself away, panting and wild-eyed. 

“You,” Axe says, and then has to stop and gather himself. Talking isn’t exactly in his nature. That’s all right. Sticks can talk plenty for both of them. After a moment, Axe continues, “You’ll keep me warm.”

“However long you’ll let me,” Sticks says. He starts to peel the blanket from around his own shoulders. “That’s not just metaphorical, neither, so you just hold still a second and--”

Axe distracts him shamefully by kissing him again. His mouth. His jaw. His throat. His sternum. Lower. It turns out the only blanket Axe wants is Sticks’s femurs slung over both his shoulders, which will keep him plenty warm, probably. 

“Oh,” Sticks says, blushing fiercely. Then Axe is licking him up, and Sticks shudders all over. Axe’s mouth is absolutely ruthless. Not rough, exactly, but not gentle either. Demanding. He already has Sticks’s femurs trembling for him. Sticks lets his mouth run without his mind behind the wheel. “Yeah, sweet pea, that’s good, that’s so good, take me just like that…”

So Axe does. Thoroughly. 

Eventually the storm comes rolling through, chasing the rain. Lightning flashes outside, a forewarning that Sticks is almost too much in a fever to notice. Sticks smooths a trembling hand over Axe’s skull, crooning softly that he’s good, he’s all right, but Axe doesn’t flinch at the roll of thunder that follows. He’s busy with other things. Very, very busy.


End file.
